


Easy Now with My Heart

by braveten



Series: in sickness & in health [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Birthday, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAILEY!, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 01:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10674861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braveten/pseuds/braveten
Summary: “Fast, Yuuri. Pow pow.”“Pow pow?”He giggles—Victor Nikiforov, figure skating champion, Olympic athlete, Yuuri’s idol, who is currently sick and delusional,giggles—and puts his hand on Yuuri's chest, pillowing his head there, too. “Pow pow,” he repeats as he feels his heartbeat. “Pow pow, pow pow. Fast, see?”Oh.





	Easy Now with My Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haileycl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haileycl/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAILEY! (@victuurificrec)!  
> *throws confetti*
> 
> This fic is completely dedicated to this fantastic and lovely person whom you should definitely check out on [Tumblr](http://victuurificrec.tumblr.com) and [AO3.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haileycl/pseuds/Haileycl) I hope you enjoy it! :D :D
> 
> This is also a companion piece to another fic I've written titled [The Fundamentals of Caring,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8976517/chapters/20523451) in which it's Yuuri who gets sick! However, these two don't take place in the same universe/timeline. This fic takes place after the Grand Prix Final but before Victor and Yuuri move in together! It will be two parts!
> 
> Also -- the title is lyrics from Walk The Moon's [Tightrope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPedH9B8AAE)
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you have a FANTASTIC day Hailey! ILY! <3 <3 <3

The pancakes don’t look good.

(They don’t look bad, per se, but they don’t look good, either.)

(They just look…)

Yuuri takes a fork and flips one over on the plate, examining it. It’s not terrible. He’s impressed with himself for even getting a solid food out of his cooking epidemic at all, given the smoke that had flooded the kitchen and the coughing that had ensued. He licks his lips, eyes the door to Victor’s bedroom.

And stands.

And stands.

He’d bought a blueberry muffin, too, and he placed it on the edge of the plate, going for presentation points rather than taste points. There’s a glass of juice sitting precariously on the corner of the tray that the plate is on, and overall, he doesn’t think the breakfast is that bad.

They’re staying in Saint Petersburg and visiting the rink there, and it’s Yuuri’s first time staying in Russia for a reason other than a competition. The Grand Prix Final had wrapped up a few weeks ago, and now Yuuri has a shiny gold ring on his finger and a silver medal that does not, in fact, match.

The most intimidating aspect of their outing—beside the fact that Yuuri doesn’t speak fluent Russian—is that he’s living in Victor Nikiforov’s apartment. With Victor Nikiforov. For about a week and a half. And they’re only five days into this trip, and Yuuri’s heart is already about to burst with the domesticity of it all. They’re not sharing a room. Yuuri is taking the office, which has been made into a makeshift guest bedroom, and Victor is in his own bedroom.

(Victor had wanted to share a room with him, but Yuuri had insisted that he wanted to impose as little as possible, silently regretting that decision ever since.)

They live together in Japan, yes, but it’s not quite the same—it’s a larger space with other people constantly around them. This, this is intimate, this is shared bowls of cereal and sitting too close together on couches. This is clueing Yuuri in on Victor’s flaws, such as leaving empty containers in the fridge and dirty bowls on tables, and it’s humanizing him, somehow, seeing him like this.

Like he’s a god captured in a tiny apartment with carpeted floors and cracks in the ceiling.

He’d made the pancakes for Victor’s birthday, despite the fact that Victor doesn’t often celebrate it, and he holds them now, standing outside of his bedroom door and staring at it as though it has claws and teeth. Yuuri shifts his weight from one foot to the other and the glass clinks on top of the wooden tray, threatening to topple. He swallows and sets the tray down on the kitchen counter, pacing. His footsteps are quiet, though, because he’s certain Victor is still asleep.

Yuuri had wanted to wake him up with breakfast in bed.

That was the plan.

A nice birthday surprise, but nothing too extravagant.

And yet here he is, with his below-average grade pancakes and rapidly thumping heart.

Which is stupid, because it’s just pancakes.

So he should just go in there and…

He picks up the tray again.

Breathes in, breathes out.

No big deal. Victor won’t think it’s a big deal, because it’s not a big deal, because just because he’d begged Yurio to teach him how to properly pronounce “happy birthday” in Russian and scoured the local grocery store for ingredients, it’s not a big deal. It’s not.

So he breathes in again, then puts his hand on the doorknob, careful to balance the tray on his arms as he does so.

And…

It’s locked.

He cringes, wondering if Victor had heard him try the knob. It’s unlike him to lock his door, though—if anything, he normally leaves it open so that Makkachin can walk in and out as he pleases. Yuuri sets the tray back down on the kitchen counter, considers knocking on the bedroom door, but realizes that perhaps Victor had wanted privacy, perhaps he had wanted…

There’s a groan.

A groan.

A genuine groan.

Yuuri steps closer to the bedroom door, puts his ear against it.

There’s silence for a while, but then there’s that noise again, that same groan.

“Victor?” he asks, quietly, more to himself than to Victor himself, but then he repeats it, louder. “Victor?”

“Yuuri?” a reply comes, but there’s something wrong—it’s broken, the syllables strung together like broken Christmas lights, the last sound of his name trailing off as though Victor had been too exhausted to even finish the word.

Yuuri places his hand on the knob, tries it again. “Are you alright?”

Another pause.

“Huh?” Victor asks, and his voice sounds muffled by something, now, the last sound trailing off like it had before.

“I asked if you’re alright. Can you open the door?” He tries the knob again, making sure that it makes a noise that Victor would be able to hear.

Another groan. “Glue,” Victor says, and Yuuri wonders if it’s a Russian word he’s unfamiliar with, can feel his phone heavy in his pocket and wonders if he needs to call the police, an ambulance—not that he even knows how to do that in Russia, but he could Google it and—“It’s glued.”

“What’s glued? What’s going on?”

“The door,” he elaborates, as though that explains everything, and Yuuri hears sheets rustling. His next words are too quiet to make out.

Yuuri bites his lip, tries the lock, takes his phone out of his pocket and clutches it, just in case. “It’s locked. What are you…? Do you have a key?”

Victor laughs.

Yuuri stops breathing.

Something is wrong. Very wrong.

He reaches for the doorframe, feels the top of it. If Victor is anything like Yuuri’s father, then he might keep… Bingo. A key. It’s small and silver and he sticks it into the lock of the doorknob, wiggling it around until he finally hears a satisfying click. Then, he swings the door open and hurries inside, eyes landing on a mess of silver hair sticking out of the sheets.

Victor is lying backwards. His head is at the foot of his bed, his feet near the pillows. He’s out of sight apart from his mop of hair, and Makkachin is lying near his head, curled up in a ball and oblivious to whatever is going on. Yuuri moves towards the bed, slips his phone back into his pocket, and peels back the end of the sheet with his thumb and index finger.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes, looking up at him.

And he looks…

Wrong.

His eyes are glassy, still beautifully blue but confused, empty, as though he’s seeing but not really seeing. His lips are pale, but they’re nothing compared to his cheeks, which make him look as though he has had the life sucked out of him. His long eyelashes flutter against his skin as he stares into Yuuri’s eyes, appearing to be looking straight through his soul and seeing absolutely nothing at the same time.

“What happened?” Yuuri asks in a quick breath, and his phone is back in his hand again in a second. “How do I call the police? Or an ambulance, or… Or should I…” He trails off as he sees a smile grow on Victor’s lips, starting small and growing into something more, something that consumes all of his features, something bright and much, much more familiar than that other, odd look. “Victor?”

“Yuuri,” Victor repeats. “Are you awake?”

Yuuri watches as Victor moves his arm but struggles to get it out from underneath the sheets. When he does, he reaches his hand towards Yuuri’s face, fingers stopping a few inches away from it, as though it’s too far away. “What do you mean am I awake?”

“Am I awake? I feel awake,” he says seriously.

“What’s wrong? Do you need me to get someone? Help? Or call Yakov?”

Victor’s hand closes the gap between them and his fingers brush against Yuuri’s cheekbone. Yuuri shivers involuntarily as the fingers drift, slowly making their descent until they reach his chin, then falling away, as though they’d never been there at all.

Then, promptly, Victor coughs on him.

And he coughs hard, eventually moving his elbow to cover it and contracting his legs, bending them at the knees and bringing them towards his chest. The sheets underneath him twist and he shuts his eyes, rolling onto his side, body trembling from the fit. “Ow,” he complains weakly, curled up in a ball.

“Oh, you’re sick,” Yuuri realizes, and sits down on the edge of the bed. “You’re sick, is that it?”

“I think so,” he admits, and Yuuri is just glad that those words have some clarity to them. He drifts his hand down Victor’s arm until he reaches his ring, then plays with it, and Victor shifts closer to him on the bed, eyes still shut tight. “Ow.”

“What hurts?” he asks, concerned.

Victor thinks for a second. “всё.”

Yuuri doesn’t know much Russian, but he has heard that word before. He thinks, then squeezes his coach’s arm again. It’s suppose to be a comforting gesture, but he thinks it turns out more awkward than anything else. “Oh. Everything?”

Victor nods his head against the sheets. “Ow.”

“Ow,” Yuuri agrees. “Hang on, I’ll get you some water.”

He doesn’t say anything as he leaves the room. He takes the cup full of juice that he’d made and empties it, filling it with water instead and hurrying back into the bedroom. Victor hasn’t moved, is still curled up, and Yuuri takes a second to fully take in his appearance—hair messy, his entire body seeming smaller than usual, more delicate, more fragile. It breaks his heart as he sits and hands him the glass.

Victor starts to turn the glass on its side to bring it to his mouth, but Yuuri darts out his hand to catch it. “You’ll have to sit up,” he apologizes.

Victor doesn’t say anything.

After considering his options, Yuuri touches his shoulder delicately, tries to help him to sit up. To his surprise, Victor complies, shifting upwards, body slumped forward as he brings the glass to his lips. His hands shake. Yuuri can’t stand to watch, so he takes the glass, then puts his other hand on the back of Victor’s neck to keep him still. He tilts the glass back and Victor drinks.

When the water is gone, Yuuri sets the cup on the nightstand but keeps his other hand on Victor’s neck. He watches him, wondering if he should get help after all, given that a minute ago Victor had been deliriously talking about glued-shut doors and groaning in pain, but—

Victor falls on him.

Two arms wrap around Yuuri’s back and a face is buried in his shoulder, Victor’s entire weight relying on him. Yuuri’s hand on Victor’s neck slips down to his back to prevent him from falling off of the bed, and he stares down in shock. Because Victor Nikiforov is sick and lying on him and an absolute mess.

“Hey,” Yuuri tells him gently. “I’m going to help you lie back down, okay?”

No response.

Peachy.

In order to lower Victor, he lowers himself, his own head hitting the pillow as Victor’s weight drags him down onto the bed. Except the arms don’t move, and neither does Victor’s head, and perhaps that hadn’t been Yuuri’s best decision, because he’s now lying in bed with a very sick and very delusional Victor Nikiforov on top of him.

He’d almost forgotten about Victor’s birthday.

“I’m sorry that you’re sick,” he says awkwardly, unsure as to whether or not Victor is asleep. “That’s no good way to spend your birthday.”

He’s just starting to theorize that Victor is asleep and that he should find some way to escape this awkward yet familiar situation of Victor lying on top of him—that seems to happen a lot, somehow—when he hears a noise come from beneath him. “What’d you say?” Yuuri urges, eager for any tidbit of information that Victor can provide him about his current situation.

“Good,” Victor repeats, sound argumentative. He cuddles Yuuri closer and Yuuri has to bite back a yelp as Victor’s arms squeeze him, cheek pressing against his pectoral and hair nuzzling his chin. “Good.”

“What do you—a good way to spend your birthday?”

“Mmm,” he agrees, then breathes in, deep, then out.

Yuuri isn’t sure what to say.

Evidently, he doesn’t have to say anything, because Victor speaks up again. “Fast, Yuuri. Pow pow.”

“Pow pow?”

He giggles—Victor Nikiforov, figure skating champion, Yuuri’s idol, _giggles_ —and unwraps one of his arms from Yuuri, poking him in the chest instead, right in front of Victor’s own eyes. “Pow pow,” he says as he pokes his chest quickly. “Pow pow, pow pow. Fast, see?”

_Oh._

Yuuri feels himself blushing, knows that he really, really needs to escape this situation before Victor discovers any of Yuuri’s other biological reactions to this positioning. “Yeah, I see,” he croaks, then touches Victor’s arm. “Listen, I’ll go get you some medicine or something. It would make you feel better. Can you let me get up?”

“Pow pow, pow pow,” Victor mumbles incoherently, the hand that had previously been poking his chest stilling, resting there instead, directly over his heart. He shifts it, fingers drifting across the fabric of his shirt, then giggles that same, unfamiliar giggle. “Even faster.”

Yuuri wonders how long it will take for him to die of embarrassment. “Okay, I’m going to go get medicine. So could you…?”

Victor raises his elbow, coughs into it, then cuddles back against Yuuri, sighing. His body shakes. He tucks his arms and curls up into him. Content. Definitely content.

“Are you cold?” Yuuri asks.

He nods, and Yuuri reaches down to grab the blanket, pulling it over Victor, careful to make sure that he doesn’t pull it over himself and give him the wrong idea. Victor, however, is still almost entirely on top of him. “остаться,” he whispers against him.

Yuuri can’t help but break at the sound of his voice, sounding so small, so unlike Victor that he can almost imagine there’s a small child clutching him instead of his coach. “What’d you say?”

He repeats it, even quieter this time, shuffling.

“English?” he asks, though he’s sure he could translate the word himself if he focused.

No response.

“Victor?” Yuuri persists, but he listens and hears even breaths, feels a still body on top of his own. He’s asleep.

It’s not the best position for Yuuri, his back against the bed and his head turned up towards the ceiling. If he moves his head, his chest will surely move, and then Victor will surely move, and that’s currently the last thing that he wants. When Victor had been awake, their positioning had been unfamiliar, embarrassing due to Victor’s play-by-play reaction to Yuuri’s every move.

But sleeping, Yuuri can’t imagine being intimidated by him. He licks his lips in his sleep and his hand on Yuuri’s chest shifts to his shoulder, cradling it gently, holding him close. Yuuri takes his hand on Victor’s back and moves it upwards, intending to bring it back to his own side but ending up placing it on Victor’s neck instead, letting his fingers skid across the back of it.

Then, he touches the short hairs there, fingernails gently scraping, and Victor lets out a quiet, happy noise, almost a loving sigh. Yuuri takes that as encouragement and moves his hand higher, holds his breath, because he has wanted to do this a thousand times before, because although he has slept with Victor in similar scenarios before, he has never touched him like this.

His hair is soft—Yuuri had already known that. But he hadn’t anticipated the way that it would feel freely drifting between his fingers, this way and that, the way that the strands part and move, thin and perfect. It’s addictive, unbelievably addictive, and Yuuri finds himself unexpectedly mesmerized as he brushes Victor’s bangs out of his face and back.

He knows that he should stop—because should Victor wake up he’d certainly hear that “pow pow” again—but he can’t bring himself to. It even smells wonderful, a mingling of shampoo and something else that Yuuri has come to associate closely with Victor since the day he’d met him, something familiar and inviting and perfect. Yuuri keeps his hand where it is, brushing through the locks.

His own eyelids start to grow heavy, exhaustion setting in from waking up so early to perfect the breakfast combined with sleeping in this particular position. He shuts his eyes, turns slightly onto his side to get more comfortable, Victor still draped over him like a second blanket.

_Stay,_ he realizes.

The word Victor had said earlier meant stay.

 

~

 

Victor is warm.

Warm and happy.

(He’s not sure why he’s happy, but he’s happy all the same.)

And then he feels something underneath him that doesn’t feel quite like his bed, but it must be his bed—either his bed or Makkachin. But if he were sleeping on Makkachin then that wouldn’t be good, so he hopes that it’s his bed. His bed with a lump in it. And his bed is moving. His bed with a moving lump in it.

And it’s not his bed, it’s Yuuri.

Which is good.

(Except it wouldn’t be good if he were crushing him, but he doesn’t seem to be, because Yuuri is sleeping.)

There’s a pain starting low in his stomach and reaching his head where it burns behind his eyelids, where it congests his nose and causes blood to pound in his ears, but he’s growing used to it already, and the sensations seem dim compared to that of having Yuuri underneath him. Not a bed, not a poodle, but Yuuri.

And since when is he…?

Victor reaches a hand up, touches his chin. His skin is cool to the touch, unlike Victor’s burning and blazing body, and his features are soft, drowned in the tiny amount of sun leaking through the curtains off to their left. He supports himself with one elbow to get a better look at him, keeping the rest of himself on top of Yuuri—because why wouldn’t he?—and touching his lip.

He touches the lip with his index finger and watches, awed, as it moves underneath his caress. Victor laughs under his breath, not wanting to wake him, then touches the top one, admiring the softness, the fullness, the beauty of it, the gentle pink shading and the beautiful, closed eyes above it. He has brown eyes, Victor remembers, easily able to picture them, but he can’t see them now. Yuuri is asleep.

Honestly, he isn’t sure why Yuuri is asleep, nor why they’d been sleeping together, but he is more than okay with it. He watches Yuuri’s long lashes, wondering if and when they’ll move. Then, Victor gathers all of his focus to touch them, as gently as possible, just wanting to test how soft they are, too.

(And they are.)

(Soft, that is.)

(Very soft.)

Then, he touches his eyebrow, traces it.

Then, his hair—incredible. It’s short and Victor likes the feeling of it underneath his fingertips, likes the way that it moves when he touches it just like this. Eventually, though, he’s distracted and moves back to his lips.

The eyelashes move.

Victor flinches, startled, but keeps his positioning, watching Yuuri analytically while his index finger continues to trace his bottom lip. Yuuri’s eyelashes flutter slowly, his eyes open a quarter of the way, then close, then open halfway, then close, then…

“Victor!” he yelps, and tries to scramble backwards on the bed, failing because he’s caught underneath him. “What are you…?”

Brown eyes, Victor recalls.

Except they’re scared. Brown and scared.

Yuuri looks scared in general, trying to get away from him, but why would he…?

Victor crawls off of him immediately. “S-sorry. Yuuri, I’m… I didn’t...”

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes, and shakes his head. “Um, no, that’s okay. You just surprised me, is all. Oh, Victor, don’t…” He purses his lips. “I… Don’t do that, please.”

“Don’t do what?”

He makes a vague hand gesture towards his face. “Don’t… Don’t look sad, like that.”

Yuuri is speaking. Speaking about something.

But there’s that lip again.

Victor watches at it moves, and then Yuuri’s tongue darts out to wet it and that’s magical, right? Some sort of magic? It’s beautiful and he ignores the throbbing in his stomach and head because Yuuri is probably magical, maybe fake, even, because Victor has never met someone like him before so it’s possible that he’s fake. He hopes he’s not fake, though. Hopes with all of his heart.

Because he doesn’t know what he’d do if Yuuri left, if he was fake. Victor used to be sad, a long time ago, used to be sad and then he’d met Yuuri and now he’s lying with him in bed and had touched his lip and he’s warm and he hadn’t been warm before, but he likes it, likes being warm, likes being with him.

“So what are—hang on, are you crying?” Yuuri exhales, and his eyes widen. Brown eyes. “Oh no, oh no, Victor, Victor talk to me. Why are you crying? Does it hurt again? What hurts?”

The lip still moves.

(Funny how it does that.)

Victor reaches up, touches it.

Incredible.

“Are you real?” he asks, quiet, half-hoping that he won’t answer.

Yuuri laughs, relieved. It’s cute. His lip moves when he does that. “Um, yes. Last time I checked, I was real.”

“Check again,” Victor asks seriously. He takes his hand away from his mouth, and Yuuri seems satisfied when he does that. “Check again.”

“Um…Sorry, it’s actually a figure of—um, I don’t know how to…” Yuuri trails off. Victor stares at him. Yuuri stares back. He’s so, so pretty. Unbelievably pretty. Luck. Victor wonders if he’d met him through luck. Then, his stomach growls, breaking off that thought.

“I’m hungry.”

Yuuri lights up at that. “Hungry? Right, um, okay. I made you breakfast earlier, but I don’t know how long we were asleep for… Do you happen to know…?”

Victor doesn’t respond, and whatever Yuuri sees in his face makes him drop that thought.

“I’ll bring it to you. You wait here.” Yuuri slips out from underneath him and Victor lands back on the bed, turns on his side so that he can watch Yuuri leave. Yuuri pauses at the doorway. “Wait here, okay?”

The light hits him just right.

(An angel.)

“Um,” Yuuri says, and rubs the back of his head. “I’ll assume you understood me. Be right back with food. Stay. Wait, what was it you used earlier? Er, остаться?”

“Stay,” Victor translates automatically, and Yuuri looks relieved. 

“Yes,” he breathes. “Yes. остаться. Stay.”

Victor isn’t sure why he keeps saying that. He squints at him. “You stay?”

“No, you stay.”

“You stay?”

“ _You_ stay.”

“You stay with me?”

“You stay while I get food.”

“Food,” Victor repeats, because that sounds good—food sounds good.

And then he’s gone.

Victor misses him immediately. “Yuuri,” he says quietly, shutting his eyes, hoping Yuuri will appear underneath him once again, because he’d been warm and gentle and beautiful and Victor wants to touch him again. “Yuuri,” he repeats. “Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri…”

Nothing.

“Yuuri,” he says louder. “Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri.”

“Are you calling for me?” a voice calls from the kitchen, then a head pokes around the doorway, brown eyes blinking at him.

Victor reaches towards him. “Come here.”

Yuuri stares at him for a second, then looks back in the kitchen, then looks back at him. “But I’m getting you that breakfast I was talking about. I wasn’t sure if the pancakes would still be good but I had some of the batter leftover so…”

Food or Yuuri.

“Come here,” he begs again, but it comes out more like a whine this time, and his head is hurting again so he buries it in the pillow and tugs the sheets over himself and prays, begs, hopes with every fiber of his being that Yuuri will listen to him.

“Can you stand? I’ll bring you to the kitchen.”

Both.

Both food and Yuuri.

Yuuri Katsuki is a genius—and that’s irrefutable.

“Kitchen,” he agrees weakly, but doesn’t move. He’s not sure his legs work. He figures Yuuri should know that. “My legs don’t work.”

At that, Yuuri laughs a little. There’s a hand on Victor’s shoulder and it startles him so much that he turns his head so that he can meet Yuuri’s eyes, searching them, and, oh, he’d forgotten that they’re brown, which is odd, because he’d seen them just a second ago. But it’s like a rediscovery of his beauty, and for that he’s thankful.

“Okay, come on, up. If you want to, um, be… If you want to…”

“Want you,” Victor states, shuffling to push the sheets back down to free himself. The man standing beside the bed helps, pushing them past his feet and then offering a hand. Without another word, Victor takes it, and Yuuri pulls.

A pause.

“Can you… Can you move?”

With his free hand, he pushes off of the bed, feet on the floor, but the blankets have drifted to the edge of the bed and his foot lands on them, causing him to slip. Yuuri catches him under his arms, supporting his weight with his face only a few inches away from Victor’s own.

Hypnotism.

(The only possible explanation for why Victor can’t move as he stares into Yuuri’s eyes.)

“ _Wow,_ ” he breathes, but doesn’t feel himself do it. Yuuri’s cheeks flush pink and Victor leans one arm on him, removing his other one so that he can bring his hand to Yuuri’s cheek, feel the warmth there. It’s hard, though, when his own hands are warm. Hard to tell what warmth is coming from Yuuri and what warmth is coming from himself. How annoying.

“Okay, come on,” he urges, and starts leading him out of the bedroom.

Victor keeps an arm around him, leaning his weight on him until he’s deposited on a stool by the counter. He pouts but sits, immediately slumping against the marble and burying his head in his arms. “Yuuri,” he mumbles to himself, not quite sure if he wants Yuuri to take him back to bed or Yuuri to touch him or Yuuri to be with him or Yuuri to speak or Yuuri to continue making food or Yuuri to—

He just wants Yuuri.

“This was supposed to be a birthday breakfast,” Yuuri explains. “And I guess it still is, but… Um…”

Victor tries to look at him, but the lights hurt. There hadn’t been lights in his bedroom, not this strong. It occurs to him that Yuuri had just said something, so he forces his mind to go backwards so that he can digest the words. Birthday. Birthday birthday birthday. “Who’s birthday is it?”

Oh.

“Your birthday,” Victor realizes in one breath, looking up despite the burning of the lights and squinting his eyes to get any glimpse of Yuuri that he can. “Your birthday. Oh, Yuuri, I didn’t… I forgot to…” An aching in his stomach. His eyes are on fire. “Ow, I forgot… I didn’t know… No, I didn’t…”

He hadn’t gotten him anything.

Hadn’t gotten Yuuri anything.

And he knows that he has a bad memory, yes, but this is inexcusable, because it’s Yuuri’s birthday, and he should’ve gotten him something, anything, because of course he should’ve, because it’s Yuuri, because Yuuri had come to Russia with him just to visit Yakov and Yurio and the other skaters at the rink and he’s beautiful and he has those gorgeous lips and how, how could Victor have possibly—

“No! No, no it’s okay, don’t… It’s okay,” Yuuri is saying, and his voice is muddy, barely breaking through Victor’s overpowering wall of fuzzy thoughts. “It’s your birthday. Not mine.”

“My birthday?” he asks, and then breathes a sigh of relief. It’s just his birthday. “How old am I?”

Yuuri laughs at that.

He doesn’t know what he did to make Yuuri laugh, but…

He has to do it again. Has to.

(Has to figure it out.)

(What had it been?)

“Twenty-eight,” Yuuri says gently, and Victor likes that tone of his voice, that relaxing, calming tone. It makes the pain in Victor’s body dull just a little bit, and Victor figures it’s Yuuri’s magic acting up again, like he’s on the fritz.

“You’re twenty-four,” Victor tells him, and then tries to do the math. Twenty-four and twenty-eight. Twenty-four minus twenty-eight. No, bigger number on top, so it’s twenty-eight minus twenty four. Eight minus four is four, and then the twenty minus the twenty is…

Yuuri cracks a smile. “Four years? Is that what you’re trying to figure out?”

He’s a genius. He’d done that in the blink of an eye.

“I’m four years older than you.”

“You are.”

No—Victor needs to focus. Make him laugh.

He tries to speak, but it turns into a cough. And one cough turns into a fit, and then he’s barely balanced on the stool, mouth against his elbow and his chest burning as his lungs encourage the pain, wracking and aching and burning and sizzling and there’s a hand around him and it’s helping, just a little. “Victor, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

He believes him.

How could he not?

“Laugh again,” Victor requests, because that had made him feel better before, maybe it could do it again. He touches Yuuri’s cheek, which turns pink, and this time Victor’s hands are cold so he can tell, yes, that Yuuri grows warm. Lovely.

“You want me to laugh?” Yuuri asks, and his eyes sparkle, don’t they? Victor had noticed that before, but he hadn’t ever quite noticed just how beautiful it is, the little gold flecks that look like stars in a galaxy, the way his skin is flawless and glowing, the way that his messy hair makes Victor feel warm inside for some reason.

He nods seriously.

“Uh…” He starts, and as he meets Victor’s eyes he starts laughing a little, and it’s perfect, light, genuine. Victor smiles brightly and Yuuri looks puzzled, covering his mouth with his hand. “I’m not laughing because you told me to laugh. I’m laughing because of how you’re looking at me.”

How he’s looking at him.

Victor keeps looking.

(That must be it.)

(The secret.)

Yuuri steps back over to the stove and starts doing something with a spatula. He’s wearing sweatpants and a white t-shirt, barefoot and without his glasses. “Okay, two new pancakes. I can make more if you want.” He places them on a plate. Then, as though it’s an afterthought, produces a blueberry muffin from the fridge and places it beside the pancakes. And a glass of water. And Victor loves him.

“Okay, bon appétit. And happy birthday.”

He stares at the food in front of him.

“What’s wrong?” Yuuri asks, and slides onto a stool beside him.

“I’m hungry but I’m not hungry,” Victor explains, and stares at the pancakes as though they’d personally offended him. They look good, and Yuuri looks good—but that’s not the point, is it?—and his stomach had been growling just minutes ago but now the mere sight is making him sick.

Yuuri licks his lips. “Oh.”

He has to make an effort. For Yuuri.

He picks up the fork.

Takes one bite.

Gags.

And then…

“I think I’m going to…” he starts, and feels nausea overtake him. He clutches at his own stomach, feels it leap into his throat and looks at Yuuri desperately for help, his entire body feeling hot and flushed.

For half of a second, Yuuri stares at him.

And then he realizes.

“Bathroom,” Yuuri states firmly, and Victor lets Yuuri pull him off of the stool and towards the bathroom, his stomach still twisting and the sensation coming forth. He falls to his knees in front of the toilet and there are fingers running through his hair as he loses whatever food he’d had left in his stomach, his body trembling when he pulls away, leaning against the base of the sink.

“It’s okay,” a voice whispers, and the hand continues to touch his hair. “It’s okay, it’s over now. We’ll try and get you to eat again later. When you feel a bit better. Are you alright?”

He shuts his eyes tight to try and get the shaking to stop but it won’t, so he clutches his knees against his chest and leans against the voice instead, his head hitting something soft. “No food,” he tells him, almost gagging again at the very thought of trying to eat something.

“No food,” Yuuri agrees, and touches his arm. “Do you think you’re going to get sick again?”

Victor shakes his head weakly.

“Then let’s get you back to the kitchen. We’ll go slow. Brush your teeth first—that’ll make you feel better, too. Good, good. There.” Yuuri slings an arm around his waist with ease and Victor can’t help but smile a little at the feeling despite the aching that still resides in his stomach.

When he’s sitting on the stool once again, Yuuri puts away the rejected pancakes and then turns back to him. “Okay, um… Medicine. I’m going to go look for medicine. Where do you keep it?”

Medicine. Medicine, medicine, medicine.

Yuuri looks serious. He’s not smiling, not laughing, which is bad. Victor keeps looking at him but for whatever reason, this time around it’s not having the same effect. For a second, the lights seem to flash, and Victor sways, almost losing his balance on the stool. He braces his palms on the counter but realizes that it’s slippery. Yuuri is by his side in a second, a hand on his arm.

Victor can’t tell if it’s warm or not through his shirt, so he reaches for it with his own hand, touches Yuuri’s fingers and meets his eyes again, still unsure as to why he’s not laughing. “You’re not smiling,” he points out, leaning forward to get a better look. Once again, he almost falls.

“I’m worried you’re going to get hurt,” Yuuri admits. “Sorry—stool was a bad idea. Come on, up.” He lifts Victor up by his hand and moves his other hand around his waist to assist him. Then, he’s lead across the room, and he doesn’t know where they’re going but he doesn’t really care, either, because Yuuri is with him, and he trusts Yuuri, and he’d go wherever he wanted to go, honestly.

There’s a nervous laugh from his left. “Um, thank you. I think.”

(How much of that had he said out loud?)

Oh, the couch, he realizes as Yuuri stops walking. The couch. They watched a movie on this couch last night. It was good. What movie was it? Some type of comedy, but it had been in Russian, and Yuuri doesn’t speak good Russian, does he? Not perfect, anyway. But he’s learning.

“Okay, good,” Yuuri praises as Victor sits down. The words make his heart swell, as though he’d completed a monumental challenge instead of just sitting down on a couch. “Now where do you keep your medicine? Can you tell me or should I go looking?”

Victor still holds his hand. He watches their joined fingers, admires the way that Yuuri’s hand fits perfectly in his own, admires the warmth of it, the ring that brushes against his skin. They don’t hold hands as often as they should. Sometimes, yes, but not often. But it feels nice, and it’s good, being joined with him like this, so Victor makes a mental note to never let go again.

“Can you let go?” Yuuri asks, as though reading his thoughts.

He pouts, tugs on him a little bit, because Yuuri really, really ought to sit beside him on the couch right now, really ought to sleep with him again, because Victor can feel his body protesting his position and can see the fear in Yuuri’s eyes and he just wants him to laugh again. Is that so much to ask? For him to laugh?

Instead, he’s biting his lip. Which is cute, but it’s the wrong kind of lip bite. There are a lot of different kinds. Sometimes he does it when he’s nervous or happy but this one is scared, and Victor tugs on his hand again, hoping that lying with Yuuri would help alleviate his fear. “I’ll get you medicine,” Yuuri says, his voice far, far away. “It’ll make you feel better in the long run. I promise.”

Yuuri promises.

So Victor releases him.

Yuuri smiles—he smiles—and takes a step back. Then, though, he hesitates and comes forward again. He leans over and squeezes Victor’s knee with a hand, and Victor stares up at him with huge, confused eyes. “Come back?”

For some reason, that makes Yuuri still. He swallows, thick, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and his hand remains on Victor’s knee. “I… Yeah, I will.”

“Are you okay?”

“You’re just… You’re looking at me weird.”

Victor shuts his eyes.

Yuuri laughs.

(What had he done right this time?)

“You can keep your eyes open,” Yuuri assures him. “Okay, be right back.”

Just in case: Victor keeps his eyes shut.

 

~

 

Medicine, medicine, medicine.

It would appear that Victor has a very limited amount.

Everything he owns is kept in a bathroom drawer, which Yuuri scours for anything that he can find. All he manages is some over-the-counter aspirin and cough drops. But it’s better than nothing, and he could probably make a quick run to the store without Victor keeling over, especially if he starts feeling better later on.

He looks in the mirror before heading back to the living room, sees his own messy appearance and physically cringes. He hadn’t showered yet—a while ago he’d meant to shower after giving Victor his birthday breakfast but then they’d fallen asleep and, well, he’d gotten sidetracked. So now he’s a mess.

Yuuri spares a glance towards the living room, then thinks on his feet, wondering if he could sneak in a five minute shower before something terrible happens. Makkachin is with him, though, so he should be fine. Therefore, Yuuri enters the makeshift guest bedroom, which is really an office, grabs some clothes out of his suitcase and heads towards their shared bathroom once again. He turns on the water, hops in without waiting for it to grow even slightly warm, immediately scrubs out his hair and washes his body, then hops back out, throwing the clothes on quickly and opening the bathroom door.

Well.

Partially opening it.

Because it hits someone.

Someone’s back, more specifically. Luckily, he hadn’t swung hard, so it had harmlessly bounced off. But Victor looks up at him all the same, lower lip extended in a pout that could rival Makkachin’s, his eyes huge and his entire form just appearing weak, slumped and small against the white wood.

“What’s wrong?” Yuuri asks, because he shouldn’t have taken a shower and shouldn’t have left him and should’ve taken him to the doctor immediately and definitely, definitely shouldn’t have done what he did because now Victor is—

“I didn’t know where you went and my head started hurting.”

And he’s so small.

He’s so small that it’s unbelievable, unbelievable to think that this is the same man who had shown up at the onsen and blown Yuuri off of his feet, the same man that he’d had walls of posters of and the same man who he had fallen irrevocably in love with. And yet it is. And yet he is.

His eyes are as blue as ever but they look weaker, more fragile, as though he’s constantly on the verge of tears and his hand reaches out towards Yuuri and wraps around his ankle and Yuuri just stares at him, unmoving, feeling denim press into his skin where Victor’s hand holds him.

Maybe it’s a combination of things—the way that his hair is messy in a way that Victor Nikiforov’s hair is never messy, the way that his eyes are distracted in a way that Victor Nikiforov’s eyes are never distracted, the way that his lips are chapped in a way that Victor Nikiforov’s lips are never chapped.

He’s not Victor.

Well, he is, but he’s a different version—weaker, quieter, more needy.

It’s heart-wrenching, but Yuuri can’t help being intrigued by it as well, by seeing this whole new side to him, this deeper layer of emotion. Normally Victor is the type of person to build walls up, to reinvent new personas granted the situation. He’s the bottom of the iceberg, huge and magnificent but hidden from plain sight.

As Victor makes a noise akin to a whine and clings tighter to his leg, Yuuri starts to think that perhaps this is the very, very bottom of the iceberg. The very bottom. “Yosidudcombak,” he mumbles, shifting even closer.

“What?”

“You said you’d come back.”

Yuuri feels a knife twisting in his gut. “I was going to, I just wanted to shower. Let’s go back to the couch, okay? You can’t stay on the floor.”

Victor’s cheek presses against his upper calf and he sighs, other arm wrapping around his leg as well. “Yuuri,” he whispers, and Yuuri would give anything to know what he’d been thinking in that moment.

“Up, okay? I’ll help.” He reaches down, peels Victor’s hand off of his leg and laces their fingers. Victor seems content with that, allowing Yuuri to help him to his feet. One of his hands, though, shifts to his own forehead, pushing down on his temple. “I’ll get you aspirin once you’ve sat down. I promise. It’ll help.”

He nods and is led back to the couch. When he sits down, he watches with those same huge, glassy eyes while Yuuri fetches a cup of water and the container of aspirin. Then, he comes to the couch and stands in front of him. “Okay. Swallow two of these, then drink the water. Can you do that for me?”

Unsurprisingly, Victor doesn’t say anything in that moment.

Yuuri sits beside him and holds the white tablets in his palm. “I’ll hold the water for you. You can take your time, okay? If you can’t swallow them the first time spit them out. Here’s a napkin.” He sets the napkin on Victor’s lap, and Victor is still staring at him blankly, as though Yuuri is some sort of mythical creature come to life.

For a second, just a second, his gaze flickers down to the pills.

Unsure of what to do, Yuuri touches his knee again, because that had seemed to get his attention before. Victor’s eyes unmistakably stare at the point of contact. “Please? Please try?”

By some miracle, he picks up the pills and puts them in his mouth. Yuuri raises the glass to his lips, touching his shoulder gently with the other hand, silently praying that this will go well. “Okay, swallow?” Victor swallows, coughs a little, and Yuuri rubs his arm through the fits. “Now drink?” He tips the cup back and Victor spurts a little but eventually manages to drink half of the glass.

Another coughing fit. “You did great,” Yuuri tells him, and shifts closer, their thighs pressing together. “You did great, Victor. Thank you.”

“Doesn’t feel better,” he complains quietly, sinking backwards into the couch, turning in Yuuri’s direction.

Yuuri had changed into a sweatshirt and jeans, and Victor takes that opportunity to bury his face in said sweatshirt, one of his fists bunching weakly in the fabric of it and his other hand coming to lay across Yuuri’s stomach. Yuuri, on the other hand, just watches him in shock, keeps one hand on him and drifts it to his back, rubbing comforting circles. “I know,” he says. “But it will. It takes a while. Do you want a cough drop, too? Those taste good.”

He doesn’t say anything, so Yuuri takes that as a negative answer. He thinks that Victor should eat, but the box of aspirin had said, according to Yuuri’s broken Russian and the assistance of Google Translate, that it could be taken without food. Therefore, he figures it may be best after all to let Victor rest and to let the medicine do its work. So he sits, decides to lean against the arm of the couch so that Victor doesn’t end up pushing him over with his weight.

“You showered,” Victor realizes, voice lazy and a yawn escaping him.

“Couldn’t you hear the water earlier?”

Victor yawns again. “It still hurts, Yuuri. You said it wouldn’t.”

He pauses his hand on Victor’s back, legs the fingers splay and keeps it still. “It won’t after a while. It doesn’t help right away.”

“I think I’m on fire.”

Yuuri laughs, and for some reason Victor looks up at him when he does that, eyes even more curious than before, watching his lips, his eyes. He’s self-conscious, suddenly, and snaps his lips together. Then, though, Victor reaches up a hand and brushes his thumb across his bottom lip, delicate, like he’s touching a statue instead of an actual person. There is no reservation, no fear.

“Victor?” Yuuri asks gently, not pulling away, remembering how he’d reacted last time.

“It’s my birthday,” he tells him, sounding… Surprised, almost?

He begins massaging his back again, unable to help himself when Victor is so pliant in his arms, so affectionate and so open. He’s certainly touchy, but this sick version of him is even more so, and much less intimidating. “Happy birthday.”

Victor’s hand falls away from his lips and he cuddles him again, more obviously this time, body curling on top of Yuuri’s and his head resting on his chest, face turned in towards the thick sweatshirt. One of his hands snakes in between Yuuri and the couch and the other resumes its earlier position fisted in the fabric. “I haven’t had a birthday like this in a long time.”

“Yeah?” he asks gently, hearing the sleepiness permeating Victor’s words, punctuating each one with a breathiness that makes Yuuri wonder if he’ll be sentient past the end of his next sentence. “Sick?”

He shakes his head. “Happy.”

“What?” Yuuri asks, confused. Victor’s hair tickles his chin and he’s brought back to this morning, falling asleep with his hand in those same strands. “What do you mean?”

“No happy birthday,” he sighs, then coughs into his elbow. “Not since… I don’t know. A long time, I think. One, two, three, four, five…”

Yuuri’s breath catches as he tries to take those words in. “But you’re… You’re sick. You’re sick today.”

Victor hums in agreement.

“So why are you happy?”

Victor yawns, and the noise is sweet, almost more cat-like than human-like as he shifts his legs against Yuuri’s, a knee pressing on his thigh and a foot slipping under his calf. “Happy birthday,” he says dreamily.

“Happy birthday,” Yuuri agrees.

His bangs are awkwardly falling in front of his eyes with his face pressed into the sweatshirt, so Yuuri instinctively runs his finger along his hairline to pull it away, letting it fall the other way, instead. When he moves his hand away, Victor turns and looks up at him, hair returning to cover his eyes. “Yuuri?”

Even like this, his coach’s beauty is disarming.

“Um, yes?”

Instead of responding, Victor reaches around for Yuuri’s hand, finds it, then plays with his fingers. He watches his own actions, entranced, as though his body has a mind of its own. “Are you having a happy birthday, too?”

“It’s not…” Yuuri trails off as he watches Victor’s eyes dart back up to his, genuine, real, beautifully blue and just as stunning as they would be were his mind not fried. “Yeah, I am.”

“That’s good. You know what—” His words are cut off when he starts coughing, bringing his elbow back and slipping off of Yuuri’s chest, trying not to spit on him, entire body shivering when he’s done and his body slumping on Yuuri’s lap. “Can you make that stop?”

“The coughing?”

Victor nods weakly, face now buried in Yuuri’s thigh. “I don’t like it. Please?”

“I… Have a cough drop. Come on, sit up.”

No movement.

“Vitya, you’ll have to sit up.”

A giggle. “You called me Vitya.”

So maybe he’s not in _too_ much pain. That relieves Yuuri’s fears slightly. He takes Victor’s shoulder and helps lift him up, then reaches forward and picks up the bag of cough drops off of the table. He’s picking one out when he feels a hand in his hair and turns, yes, to see Victor Nikiforov staring at his head and running his fingers through his hair over and over again without shame.

“It’s still wet,” Victor whispers, like it’s a secret. “From the shower.”

“It is. Okay, here’s a cough drop.”

“I think I’d like to see you in the shower.”

“The… The cough drop…”

The hand doesn’t leave his hair, but his other hand comes and accepts the small drop. Victor’s eyes ask a silent question as he holds it.

Yuuri shakes his head. “You don’t need water.”

Victor places it in his mouth and then sucks. A second later, his eyes light up and he hums appreciatively, lowering his head back onto Yuuri’s shoulder as though it’s natural, as though it’s where he belongs. “You sing in the shower.”

Yuuri ducks his head. “Um, yeah, sometimes. A lot of people do.”

“What else do you do?”

“What?”

“In the… What’s it called again?”

“Shower.”

“Yes. What else do you do in the shower?”

He’s delusional. He’s delusional. And his mind is definitely not on the same horrid path that Yuuri’s mind is on, because he’s sick, and he’s delusional. Yuuri puts an arm around his shoulders as an experiment and, evidently, Victor likes it, because he’s snuggling farther against him shamelessly. “The same things that most other people do.”

“Oh.”

There’s a long pause. Yuuri wonders if he might finally be falling asleep.

A noise from his shoulder. “Keep talking.”

“What do you want to talk about? You’re not very, er…”

“Not very what?” Victor asks, and there are those eyes again, peering straight into his own, breath hot on Yuuri’s cheek as he leans close—far, far too close. A shiver goes down his spine and he homes that Victor is too sleep-fuddled to notice.

Yuuri bites his lip. “I don’t remember the English word. Ar… Articulate. You’re not very articulate right now. Normally you are.”

“Ar-tic-u-late,” Victor repeats, syllable by syllable. “Why am I not articulate?”

“You’re sick.”

“Sick?”

At that, Yuuri can’t help but brush his hair out of his eyes again. “Don’t worry about it. You can just sleep. Rest is important right now. And the cough drop should’ve helped with your cough, yeah?”

Victor’s eyes are focused on his mouth. He mumbles something incoherent. Yuuri tilts his head to the side, confused, and the silver-haired man repeats it. “It keeps moving.”

“What does?”

“Your lip. Always… Look at…” Once again, his finger brushes across it, and Yuuri can hardly contain his own reaction, going cross-eyed trying to see what he’s doing. “So soft. Ты такая привлекательная, Yuuri.”

_You are so pretty._

“Victor…”

“Say that again.”

He can’t help but smile at the seriousness in his voice. Like this is a life or death scenario. Like his life is depending on this. “Say what again?”

“My name.”

“Victor.”

Victor laughs, and it’s beautiful, golden, like the sun is rising. “Do it again.”

“Victor.”

“Wow,” he whispers, and continues to stare up at him from where he’s pillowed on his chest. “Again.”

Yuuri shakes his head and touches Victor’s hair affectionately. “You see me say your name all of the time.”

“No,” he argues simply and touches Yuuri’s cheek. “Again?”

He keeps his lips pursed, but he feels a smile tugging at them as Victor’s frustration visibly increases. “I told you, you need to sleep.”

“It makes me hurt less,” Victor promises.

Yuuri can’t help but love him. Can’t do anything but love him. Doesn’t remember what it feels like to do anything but be hopelessly in love with Victor Nikiforov. He’s not sure who he was before he met him, what he would do other than this, other than be enamored, other than watch the rise and fall of his chest and wonder how it’s possible for such a person to exist, for such happiness to exist.

“Vitya.”

Victor’s eyes go huge. “That’s even better,” he whispers, amazed, and Yuuri can’t help but laugh. “Say that one again.”

“Vitya Vitya Vitya?”

“Yuuri,” he exhales, finger tracing his jawline. “I love you.”

Without another word, he’s buried back in Yuuri’s chest, out of sight. Yuuri stares straight ahead, mind not quite yet processing what had just happened.

Well.

Victor Nikiforov had just told him that he loved him.

And that’s…

An _Are you sure?_ almost escapes his lips but he stops it just in time, because this isn’t the right time for that question, nor is it the right place. Besides, he’s sickly, obviously is delusional, obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He and Victor are engaged, but that hadn’t been… That wasn’t…

They’re in love. Yuuri is certain, at this point, that they’re in love. He and Victor have slept in the same bed countless times, know the ins and outs of the other person’s  personality, know each other’s good and bad traits, and it would be naive to argue that their relationship lacked love. But for Victor to say that out loud? To bring such an abstract concept, such a suspended belief, to light?

When they’d first come here, Victor had suggested they share his bedroom. Yuuri had argued that he didn’t want to impose, that he really didn’t mind sleeping in the office, and Victor had acquiesced. Therefore, separate rooms. Victor has always been openly affectionate, but at the same time…

“Can you keep saying it?” Victor asks. “And keep touching my hair?”

Yuuri almost faints.

(But he doesn’t.)

As he reaches his hand towards Victor’s hair, he does a sort of fist-pump dedicated to his teenage self, who would have sold every last one of his posters for a single moment like this. “Vitya,” he whispers.

Victor mumbles something.

“What’d you say?” Yuuri coaxes, because Victor is properly about to fall asleep now, body already slumping in a telltale way.

“Pow pow.”

“Shhh,” he urges, half out of embarrassment and half out of the overwhelming desire for Victor to just fall asleep—which may or may not be related to the embarrassment—and brushes his hair. “Goodnight. I’ll give you my present if you’re feeling better when you wake up, okay?”

“Present?” Victor whispers, sounding as though he might be excited if not for the dumbbells weighing down his eyelids and the warmth of his skin. “You got me a present? What is it?”

“You’ll find out later.”

“I love you,” he mumbles before one final yawn. His eyelashes flutter and his breathing smoothens as his words come to a halt, sleep finally taking over him and causing his entire body to sink into the couch—and therefore Yuuri—his weight becoming familiar and welcome on Yuuri’s lap and chest.

(For some reason, Yuuri keeps stroking his hair.)

(He’d feel guilty if he stopped, somehow.)

He’ll try and convince Victor to eat again after they’ve woken up—surely it’s past noon by now. He should also contact Yakov and the others and let them know that they won’t be visiting the rink later, as they had been for the past several days.

His hair is ridiculously soft, feathery light and silky to the touch. Yuuri breathes in the familiar scent of his shampoo and rests his cheek on the top of Victor’s head, fingers shifting to the front of his hair to accommodate for space. Victor doesn’t move, and Yuuri takes that as a positive sign, making himself more comfortable by adjusting the position of his legs and slinging his other arm over Victor’s shoulder and across his chest.

Yuuri isn’t planning on falling asleep again, but he’s awfully comfortable with Victor on top of him and feeling lethargic from having done nothing but lay around for the past several hours. His shoulders are tense, too—probably from the stress of dealing with a sick and delusional Olympic champion—and he rolls one backward into the couch, trying to alleviate some of the knots.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Victor’s expression when sleeping. He always looks more open, without the subtle yet tall walls that he sometimes has up when he’s awake. More than anything, he looks serene, in heaven on earth with his head on top of him like this and his body flush against his like this.

For a while, he can imagine what it might be like if this were a daily thing. If they did sleep like this every day, if they held each other and lived together, if the domesticities that he’d seen over the past few days became weekly, monthly, yearly occurrences. If they bought an apartment together.

An apartment with Victor.

It feels like a dream.

“I hope you feel better,” Yuuri tells Victor’s sleeping form, and shuts his eyes.

 

~  

 

“Oh, so you’re alive.”

Victor moans.

“I was starting to think Katsudon had just tricked me into watching over your dead body.”

_Yurio._

“Where?” he asks simply, because the pounding behind his eyes is back, and because it hadn’t been there when Yuuri was around, so something is wrong—very wrong. Wrong because Yuuri isn’t here. Where is he? He was here, now he’s not. He was right there. Right there. Victor is sure of it.

“He’s getting you stuff. A lot of stuff. Food, drinks, medicine, probably a medical degree to try and fix you himself. You freaked him out, Victor. Like, I already knew he was pathetic, but this is a whole new level. He was talking about taking your temperature and buying you more pillows and blah blah blah. He wasn’t sure whether or not to take you to a doctor but you looked alright to me, and he said it didn’t seem _that_ bad.”

“Yuuri,” Victor begs, the light hurting his eyes. He turns his face back into the pillows. “Want Yuuri.”

“I told you, he’s getting you stuff.”

That doesn’t make sense. Stuff? What kind of stuff? Why is Yurio here?

Victor tries to remember what had happened the night before, but nothing comes back to him. He squints at Yurio, tries to touch his own hair only to find that it’s not there. “My hair is gone,” he realizes, but he’s not horrified, for some reason. Does it look bad? Is bald a bad look on him?

“Your bangs are pushed back.”

He keeps feeling his bare forehead, but there’s nothing. Yurio looks shocked for some reason, eyebrows raised and jaw dropping open. He stands from where he’d been sitting on the kitchen stool and crosses the room, then takes Victor’s wrist and puts his hand on top of his head. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Hair,” Victor breathes, thankful. He wonders if Yuuri would still like him with no hair and tries to remember to ask him later. Later. Where is he? Obviously Yurio won’t help him, so Victor places his feet on the floor, and stands.

And falls.

Hard.

On the wooden floor.

There’s a groan. He’s not sure if he’s making it or someone else is making it. His chest aches. There’s a burning. Something is burning. Is it him? Is he burning? Where had the fire come from?

“Are you okay?”

“Yuuri?” He hopes, prays.

No, no, it’s Yurio. Yuri Plisetsky.

That’s odd.

“I want Yuuri,” Victor begs, and when he tries to move his chest hurts again and he lays slumped on the floor, cheek pressed against the carpet underneath the coffee table. “Yuuri. Where’s… I… Where is…”

“Okay, okay, chill. He’ll be back soon. Get off of the floor, he’s going to think I screwed up or something.” A pause. “Not that I care.”

Victor sits up so that his back is against the bottom of the couch. “I want Yuuri,” he declares again, and it’s his stomach, now, protesting all of these sudden motions. It aches and swirls like it has a life of its own and Victor freezes, hand flying up to his mouth.

“Victor, what’s—oh, god, okay, hang on, um… Get up. Get up fast.”

He half-crawls half-walks to the bathroom with Yurio’s panicked guidance. His stomach is clawing and burning still and he reaches for the toilet—Yurio pushes the lid up—and then is leaning over it, entire body shuddering as he loses whatever scraps of food had been left inside of his body.

There are tears nipping at the corner of his eyes when he’s finished. Yurio flushes the toilet and is still mumbling to himself, also texting on the phone, eventually grabbing a cloth from under the sink and wetting it before handing it to Victor. Victor just stares at it. Yurio sighs and takes it back before dabbing at his forehead for him. Then, Victor tries to stand up and fails miserably before he can even get off of the floor.

So he lays back down.

“Yuuri is coming,” Yurio swears, and it sounds like it’s more for his own good than Victor’s. “He’s coming, okay? He’ll know what to do with you. Is it going to happen again?”

“I want his lip,” Victor complains, remembering that bottom lip, remembers how he’d watched it for minutes and minutes on end earlier in the day. His specific memories are fuzzy, but he certainly knows that he hadn’t felt like this when he’d been laying in Yuuri’s arms. “I want… Where…”

“You want his lip? What does that even—whatever, he’s on his way.”

There’s a silence.

“Get off of the floor,” Yurio decides after a minute. “I’m taking you back to the couch before Yuuri gets back.”

“I like the floor,” Victor protests, clinging to it even as Yurio tugs on his arm.

“Come on, Victor,” he hisses in annoyance, still pulling. “It’ll make Yuuri happier.”

He frowns, stares hard at him. “What?”

“If you don’t stay on the floor. He wants you to get better, and being on the floor won’t help you get better, so it’ll make him sad to see you on the floor. So you should get up, right? Because you don’t want to see your stupid boyfriend sad?”

Wordlessly, Victor gets up on wobbly knees.

Yurio helps him the rest of the way, keeps an arm around his shoulders to guide him to the couch and then set him down. “There. Better. Oh, happy birthday, by the way. If you’re even sentient enough to understand the word birthday.”

“Why’s there a ring on my finger?” Victor asks as he lays down on the noticeably empty couch.

The blond lets out a humorless laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You’re engaged.”

“Engaged… En… With Yuuri,” he remembers, watching the light reflect off of the gold. “Engaged to Yuuri. That’s…” Victor starts grinning, and to his surprise, Yurio smiles back—just a little. “I’m engaged to Yuuri.”

“Yes, doofus.”

“My stomach,” he complains, clutching at it and rolling over. “ _Yuuri._ ”

“I know. I get it. You want Katsudon. He’s on his way. What’s the deal with you two, anyway? Like the engagement?”

“Two,” Victor thinks out loud, hearing part of Yurio’s words. “Two, three, four…”

“Did you hit your head when you fell a minute ago?”

“I love Yuuri,” Victor informs him, like it’s something he’d just read in the morning paper. “And he loves… He loves…” What does Yuuri love? He’d skated Eros about katsudon, sadly, and he loves his family and he has said before that he loves Makkachin but he has never, ever said that he loves Victor. Not once. “I don’t know if he loves me,” he tells Yurio, concerned, because he wants Yuuri to, obviously. He wants him to because it’d be much better to love him if he was loved back.

Yurio makes a weird noise. “Of course he loves you.”

Of course.

Of course.

Of course he loves you.

_Of course._

No, no, not of course, because he’d never said it. Can’t of course something that has never been said. Never stated. He needs to say it for it to be true. Needs to—

A lock.

Victor stands—well, takes a few attempts to stand and then finally manages to gain his footing—and tries to move towards the door. Yurio touches his chest with his pinky finger and Victor immediately plops back down on the couch, too weak to fight even that. “Yuuri,” he breathes, like he was meant to.

“Hurry,” he hears Yurio say in English, and the door hasn’t even shut yet, has it? But there’s Yuuri Katsuki, and he’s not wearing the sweatshirt anymore, no, now he’s wearing a puffy black jacket and blue scarf and the same jeans and Victor wants him, needs him, the sight of him could practically bring him to tears, so he reaches out and Yuuri steps forward, confusion waning in his beautiful, beautiful eyes.

“What happened?” Yuuri asks, and touches his hair.

He melts.

“Keep touching,” Victor pleads, and his voice comes out small. “I… I got sick.”

“Yurio told me. Does it feel better? That might make you feel better, actually.”

He shakes his head slowly.

Yuuri frowns and sits beside him, keeping his hand on Victor’s hair, as per his request. “I got you more medicine, but you really need to eat. What do you want? Do you still want pancakes? There’s more batter, I could make a round three…”

Victor hugs him.

Tight.

“Love you. Love you. Love you.”

Yuuri takes in a sharp breath. “I… I, um…”

He’s warm. Home. Victor had never had a home before he’d been cuddled in Yuuri Katsuki’s arms for the first time, and now he can’t imagine anything else, can’t imagine calling this beat-up apartment or even the hot springs his home when this exists, when Yuuri exists perfect and loving and beautiful as ever.

“He said he wanted to see your lip,” Yurio provides as he steps into the room.

“Your lip,” Victor remembers, and pulls away just enough to see it: the miracle, the eighth wonder of the world, the pinnacle of creation, the tint of it just right and the fullness of it just perfect and the way that it moves, god, the way that it moves, even right now, it’s moving, and there’s sound, but Victor doesn’t hear, because he’s watching, captivated.

“Gross. He’s just staring at your mouth.”

Yuuri’s entire face turns red, then. Victor’s eyes widen with surprise and he brings a hand up, touching Yuuri’s forehead with a few fingers, to test. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. Time to eat, okay? Yurio will help us figure this out. What do you feel like? Anything?”

It’s incredible, the subtleties to him. The flush spreads not just to his neck but to his chest, escaping underneath the black line of the jacket. His hair is neater than usual—probably had been brushed at some point. His eyelashes are longer. They must’ve grown since Victor had last seen him. And his jaw line is sharper. How long had he been asleep? How many years?

“Vitya,” Yuuri urges gently.

“You call him Vitya now?” Yurio scowls.

The man in question nods at Yuuri, thinking that, yes, he’d like food if Yuuri could help him figure out exactly what he’d like. Because he has no idea. “A little,” he asks, and curls up farther in his arms, tugging his own knees to his chest so that he’s entirely on top of him.

“Yurio, could you…?” Yuuri starts, sounding embarrassed.

“Whatever. Fine.”

“Try crackers. There are some in the pantry.”

“Did you shower again?” Victor wonders.

Yuuri laughs—he’s still trying to make a list of what makes him laugh like that but he can’t remember any of the previous incidents—and traces his fingers through the top of his hair, now, the tips of his bangs, drifting them upwards and letting them fall, hit his forehead, before resuming. “No. Why do you ask?”

He still smells clean. But he forgets to say that, gets distracted by the odd fabric of the jacket. Not ideal for resting his head on, but it’s functional. “Smell clean.”

Yurio comes back over with a plate and box of crackers. “Nutritional.”

“I thought they’d be easy,” Yuuri explains, and he’s doing that thing again where his face turns red. He and Yurio are staring at each other. Victor feels left out of the mix. He glances between them, trying to decipher the looks. Yuuri’s hand is gone from his hair, which is annoying.

“Yurio,” Victor says. “Come feel this.”

“Come feel what?”

“Come.”

“Victor, what are you…” Yuuri starts, then trails off, watching as Victor beckons the teenage skater closer.

Victor reaches for Yurio’s wrist and takes it, guiding his hand to Yuuri’s chest. “Feel that? Pow pow. Pow pow. Fast.”

For some reason, Yuuri shakes his head, swipes Yurio and Victor’s hands off of him and even pushes Victor off of him a bit. Not all the way, but a bit, and it hurts, it makes Victor’s heart ache and makes his stomach turn like it had before. “Yuuri,” he whimpers, and Yuuri blinks at him in surprise.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to… It’s just… Don’t feel my heart, okay, Victor?”

“You can feel mine.”

It’s then that Yurio decides to start snickering uncontrollably.

“I don’t want to—” Yuuri starts, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, let’s just get you some crackers.” He takes the box, opens it, and pours some out onto a plate. Then, he hands the plate to Victor, who doesn’t even move his arms, just lets the plate be lowered onto one of his hands. “Eat up. As much as you can. If you want an actual meal, we can do that too, but I just figured…”

Victor stares. Expression blank.

Yuuri seems to get it. He looks at Yurio, apologetic. “You can… You don’t have to… I think he wants me to…”

“Yeah, gross. I am not watching you feed him.” Yurio leaves.

He cringes and picks up a cracker, brings it to Victor’s mouth. “Okay, open.” Victor obeys. “There you go. Is it okay? Okay to eat?” A nod. “Right, next one.”

Victor eats several more crackers before slumping back against the couch. “Tired again,” he says, then yawns with impeccable timing. “Tired.”

“Sleep is good,” Yuuri urges. “Drink this first.”

He drinks some water. He almost chokes on it, but Yuuri tells him he did good, rubs his back soothingly, and somehow that’s more effective than any medical remedy. “Do you love me?”

His voice is reserved. “Why don’t we take you to bed instead of the couch? You can get proper rest.”

“Yuuri,” Victor mumbles, and draws out the ‘u’. “Do you? Because I love you.”

Instead of answering the question directly, Yuuri just hums and slides off his coat, leaving it on a chair. Then, he helps Victor to his feet. “You do?”

“More than… I love you more than…” He’s drawing a blank. “A lot.”

Silence as Victor is led through a doorway. They stop at the foot of the bed and he’s lowered slowly, head hitting the pillow and immediately turning so that he can keep his eyes focused on Yuuri. “Okay, I’ll be right outside. I can even leave the door open if you want. Is that okay?”

He takes his hand.

“Victor… You really want…?”

“Hurts less.”

Something changes in Yuuri’s eyes. He nods, crawls into the bed beside him, and Victor immediately wraps around him, arms and legs. “Does it hurt less??” Yuuri asks, laughing a little.

“Yes,” he replies, not a trace of laughter in his own voice. Because Yuuri is helping. Immensely. Before, Victor hadn’t been able to focus, his mind foggy and his head on fire, but now it feels like everything is clear, like a storm has been lifted.

He sneezes.

But not into his elbow.

And then again.

“Oh,” Victor realizes, and clutches Yuuri tighter. “I’m sorry. Sorry sorry.”

Yuuri doesn’t sound angry. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it, Vitya, okay? You didn’t mean to sneeze on me.”

“Didn’t mean to,” he agrees. “I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

“Just let me clean up. I’ll be right back.”

He tries to stay awake while Yuuri goes to the bathroom, he really does, but the dim lights aren’t helping his case. His eyelids grow familiarly heavier and heavier and he tries hard, so very hard, to stay awake, but his entire body disagrees, dragging him further and further into slumber until he’s clutching a pillow in Yuuri’s place, subconsciously wishing it were the real thing.

“I’m back,” a whispered voice says.

He can’t see him. But he lets go of the pillow, and it’s replaced with something warmer, something cradling him. Victor feels safe. “Yuuri,” he whispers, knowing.

“Go to sleep, okay, Vitenka?”

Vitenka.

_Vitenka._

“I love you.”

There’s a single finger tracing down the back of his neck, down towards his spine, and then it makes its way back up. A single point of warm contact, a pressure that makes Yuuri shiver pleasantly, that makes the sleep come quicker, like a magic spell. “I love you too.”


End file.
